Posted By On January 12, 2007 @ 2:41 PM In Uncategorized | No Comments

Popup Descriptions

Have you ever sat and really thought about the little popups that are displayed when you select any item, folder, file name or desktop icon on your computer? Perhaps, this feature is disabled on your Windows XP computer, so you might not be able to experience this feature.

Well, either way, in case you’re wondering, Windows XP offers a fast loading, small sized window that appears over each item you select on your system. This popup window usually displays some short, but useful information with details about whatever you selected. This information includes the name, the date modified and the average file size (if it’s a file).

This way, you save time by not having to wonder what each item is. You probably have a large number of files on your computer, so with the popup notifications, you can easily hover your mouse pointer over each thing and you will quickly be provided with a fast and adequate amount of information regarding it. You don’t even need to right click on anything or choose the Properties option just to get some information about each and every file. This way is much easier!

Let’s begin our journey of exploring this feature by a simple example. Suppose you go to the My Computer icon on your desktop and select a disk drive name. Let’s take the C: drive for our example.

As you can see, when a drive is selected and without opening it, a small popup window with some details about the drive itself appears. Now, let’s see where this window is coming from.

Please select Start and then Control Panel.

While in the Control Panel, select the Folder Options icon. (You must be in the classic Control Panel view for this to work).

Popup Descriptions

Posted By On January 12, 2007 @ 2:41 PM In Uncategorized | No Comments

Popup Descriptions

Have you ever sat and really thought about the little popups that are displayed when you select any item, folder, file name or desktop icon on your computer? Perhaps, this feature is disabled on your Windows XP computer, so you might not be able to experience this feature.

Well, either way, in case you’re wondering, Windows XP offers a fast loading, small sized window that appears over each item you select on your system. This popup window usually displays some short, but useful information with details about whatever you selected. This information includes the name, the date modified and the average file size (if it’s a file).

This way, you save time by not having to wonder what each item is. You probably have a large number of files on your computer, so with the popup notifications, you can easily hover your mouse pointer over each thing and you will quickly be provided with a fast and adequate amount of information regarding it. You don’t even need to right click on anything or choose the Properties option just to get some information about each and every file. This way is much easier!

Let’s begin our journey of exploring this feature by a simple example. Suppose you go to the My Computer icon on your desktop and select a disk drive name. Let’s take the C: drive for our example.

As you can see, when a drive is selected and without opening it, a small popup window with some details about the drive itself appears. Now, let’s see where this window is coming from.

Please select Start and then Control Panel.

While in the Control Panel, select the Folder Options icon. (You must be in the classic Control Panel view for this to work).

Make sure the View tab is selected as well. Now, use the scroll bar to find the choices at the bottom of the page. Pay attention to the one before the last. It says “Show popup description for folder and desktop items.”

Remember the small popup window that appeared when we selected the C: drive? This is exactly the place from where you can control the way the popup descriptions are generated. As a matter of fact, it is recommended to leave the option selected or you can select it now if it’s not already marked.

But, if you are interested in turning this feature off and would like a more personal working environment, please uncheck the respected checkbox and then press OK to exit.

Now, let’s see what happens after deselecting the box. Let’s repeat the example by going to the My Computer folder and selecting a drive letter. Now, as you can see in the following image, this time, although the drive has been selected, the popup description window is nowhere to be found.

Windows XP, as you have experienced, is able to offer a small, concise popup window over each item you select on your computer. Whether it’s a file name, a desktop icon, any files inside your personal folders or any other items present on your system, it provides some fast information about each item selected. You can easily decide if you’d like this accompanying window to appear when you select a file or not and through a few simple steps, as discussed above, you can have it all just the way you want it!